Volume 34, Issue 1 (January 2011)

Triaxial Testing of Soft Rocks

The main purpose of this paper is to describe the present practice for triaxial testing at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute with particular reference to testing of soft rocks from the oil reservoirs in the North Sea. The following aspects related to this testing are described: (a) testing equipment, (b) procedures for typical stages of the testing, (c) estimation of the allowable rate of loading to control excess pore pressures, (d) means to speed up the expulsion of pore liquid from low permeability rocks, (e) local measurements of strains with LVDTs, and (f) testing at high temperatures.